Leveraging Thought Leadership With Peter Winick – Episode 184 – Vince Poscente

The keynote speaker landscape has changed. Bureaus are more selective, and even the best speakers are booking more than 50% of their engagements directly. Facing that kind of market pressure, how do you overcome these difficulties and attract new clients?

In this episode, our guest is Vince Poscente, award-winning sales and marketing executive. Vince is the best-selling author of The Age of Speed, an Olympic athlete, and one of only four people inducted into both the US and the Canadian Speaker Hall of Fame.

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Transcript

Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And you’re joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Vince Poscente. And I got to tell you, I was reading Vince’s bio, which is like 72 pages, and said, wow, this might be intimidating. So I’ll just give you some highlights. So he went from being a recreational skier to an Olympic athlete in just four short years. He’s an award-winning sales and marketing exec. He has a Master’s in Organizational Management. one of only four people on the planet to be inducted into the USA and the Canadian Speaker Hall of Fame. Obvious stuff like New York Times bestselling author of seven books, and he’s been on Himalayan expeditions. I think most of us know Vince mostly as an amazing keynote-er and someone that has been and stays very active in this space for a long time. So welcome aboard, Vince. Thanks for coming on board.

Vince Poscente Peter, I’m a huge fan of anything you do. So when you called, I said yes. And I didn’t know what I was saying yes to.

Peter Winick Oh, that would be good. We might, we might change that. So, you know, you and I first met years ago in Texas, I want to start with speaking, because I think there are misconceptions. I think, you know, I get far too many people coming to me saying, Hey, I, what’s your plan? And you know their plan is I’m going to write a book and then be a great keynote speaker in six months. Okay. Let me take some wins out of yourself. So talk to me a little bit about the sea change that has gone on in the speaking world from a business perspective. And then you know you’ve weathered the storm multiple times how you’ve been able to do that.

Vince Poscente Wow. Well, the sea change, let’s start there. Cause it really is kind of mind boggling. And I don’t know if it’s because, you know, I’m in those algorithms as a speaker that I see more of these people hanging a shingle saying, Hey, I am an expert and can help you build your speaking business. And I, and I look at these names, I go, who are you? Who are you like, and how did you end up getting all this wisdom at 30 years old? And you know. So

Peter Winick And why haven’t I heard your name? I think there is a cottage industry of people. It’s selling the pickaxes in the gold rush, right? You know?

Vince Poscente Yeah, yeah. Well, and God bless them. I mean, if you’ve got something and it’s burning inside and you want to get it out there, the internet facilitates anybody to be able to hang a shingle. So I guess when I see this sea change happening, it’s all the more prudent to really boil it down to the fact if you want be a speaker, then speak. You know, early on, after I competed in the Olympic Games, this was 18 months after the Olympics. I did not win in the Olympics Games. There was no phone ringing off the hook asking how I placed 15th in the Games.

Peter Winick No, no, no cornflake box, no.

Vince Poscente There was zero actually, but it kept showing up and about 18 months after the Olympics, I gave a speech and then realized, shoot, I have to do this over again. This is, this story of recreational skier to Olympian in four years is very easy to say, but easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, it was, it, was exhausting and it was every day. Just, just focused on one thing to march in those opening ceremonies. is in. And, uh, to do that again, I didn’t, you know, even at the age of 32 at the time or 33, I was just going, I don’t know if I have, I just don’t know if want to do this again, but a good idea won’t go away. And, and so the long and short of it is I gave a hundred presentations in three months. And I had a mindset of, of that I used in sport, which was do what the competition is not willing to do. And, uh, that… that’s really if you look in the self-honesty mirror is exactly what you’re not willing to do. So, you know, there was a lot of creativity and innovation that has to happen. Not just, I guess, at the beginning, but especially at the beginning. And this 100 presentations was I called real estate office sales managers. And I said, what have you got planned for your next meeting? When is it? Well, it’s Monday. Well, how would you like to have an Olympic motivational talk? And they said, well, we don’t have a budget. And I said, no, no it’s free. You know, I’ll just do it. And so there were some days I gave four presentations in a day, but you know what happens is you get better and you do what the competition is not willing to do. Everybody’s running around doing, does this website look good? Does this photo look good, me holding the mic and pointing at the camera, does that look good. So all this stuff, the marketing piece and the social media and getting those likes and the followers and- So here’s the craft.

Peter Winick And I don’t think the art and the craft has changed as radically as the business has. So there’s clearly a difference between good and great. There’s clearly you can tell the difference between someone that phones it in or someone that really, really… you know, masters what they do and, and it’s amazing to see, right? I want to talk for a minute about the business side. So from my perspective, working with lots of folks that are in this space, you know the bureaus used to sort of own the market, maybe 60, 70% of the market, may be more not that long ago, eight, 10, 12 years ago. And now, you know on top of having to be an amazing thought leader and a great speaker, you’ve got to figure out SEO and all this other stuff, because most speakers, not all. You know, most are booking over 50% typically closer to 75% directly because the internet has done a crazy job of wiping out intermediaries in a large industry. So touch on that because normally, you know, the agents served a great purpose. Hey, they get you the gigs, they paid their fee, they manage some of the logistics. The burden’s on you more for that now. Would you concur?

Vince Poscente 100%. Just know that something that not everybody has noticed is bureaus are going more and more towards the exclusive speaker. Now, before you get all hot and bothered about, well, I need to be an exclusive speaker with a bureau, they’re not going to take anybody where the phone’s not ringing. You have to be a celebrity of sorts that the phone ringing and that people want you.

Peter Winick Well, and I just want to push on that. The value prop on both sides of the party is different. So if you’re a, let’s say you’re a million dollar speaker, et cetera, and you go exclusive with the bureau, they know, they can predict what that revenue stream is. You know what your costs are of managing that process, and it has to be a win for both parties, right? And the expectation from the speaker isn’t so much that they’re going to provide you all the net new business, but the value prop is more around the logistics and the brand, and maybe they’ll get you some new business. But it’s really a business management issue versus a pay for performance issue.

Vince Poscente 100%. So the bureaus are becoming more and more as, you know, I’m a non-celebrity. You know, I might be a celebrity within the speaking world of sorts, you know, but you know really I know nobody’s ever heard of me when I stand in front of them. And so I have to go out and get my own engagements. I still actively market to bureaus, but now I’m curating relationships. And it’s a bureau has made up is made up of agents, agents. Some of them. just you don’t connect with and some you do. And this is, you know, I’m 25 years into this business and I have some really good friends. And when I do a launch of something new, I don’t go to all the bureaus and say, hey, you just, there you go. This is for all of you bureau agents. I call up my buddies and say this is new. I’m throwing you a phone and I make it real easy for them to book me. So the bureau are in many ways, to many of our listeners, are an irrelevant piece. because they’re boutiques, they have their client base, they have they’re favorite speakers, and they’re always looking for something new. Don’t get me wrong. But they’re not an entity, a collective entity, they’re individual agents who do what they do very specifically with relationships. And that’s where I categorize that.

Peter Winick So I think that’s a key point because people say, oh, I’m listed at Bureau X. Well, that’s lovely, but it’s the agent at the individual level, and that bureau might have six agents, 20 agents, whatever. How are you developing and fostering the relationship at the agent level to show that you can make their job easier and make their life easier?

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Talk for a moment, if you would. One of the things I find shocking is this, what would I call it, the petunia factor of speakers, right? Where they don’t realize that they’re in a business and customer service matters. So for example, when an agent calls you and it takes you three days to respond, guess what, you just lost the gig. I mean, we’re literally now a race for speed. almost in minutes. And if you’re not responsive, guess what? They’ve got a list of 10 other folks that do what you do or they can sell to their client. Then their demands, I only fly first class and all that. Talk about sort of how do you, the relationships that you’ve forged with agents that you worked with for a long time, how do make each other’s lives easier?

Vince Poscente Yeah. Well, I leverage, first I leverage technology. So I make sure that I get a tech, if it’s somebody important that I’ve got, I’m with HubSpot and I make sure that when I get call, it immediately texts me that this person has called, make sure you call them back. Cause if it is a lead, a follow up, whether it’s an agent or a lead from, through HubSpots, I instantly call them. And you know, I wrote a book. the New York Times bestseller it ended up being, which is called The Age of Speed. So here’s a tip. If you write a book about speed, you screw yourself.

Peter Winick So maybe you need to write a book about the power of the pause in the sales process.

Vince Poscente So it’s just getting after it and making them the priority, right, that editor. You know, I don’t know how you’re dealing with this right now, but there is, there’s so many of these spam calls and I don’ know every agent’s number. And so they’re coming in and they’re ending up being in maybe voicemail or maybe they don’t like to leave voicemails, I dunno. But I know I’m losing time because these filters are pushing them into my voicemap. blocks. And so I don’t, I haven’t figured that one out yet, but it’s, it’s all about meshing technology and then just making them a priority. And, um, and you know what they say consistently, they’re shocked that I, that I reached back to them so quickly.

Peter Winick Right, but it says something, right? So if they’ve reached out, because listen, if an agent reached out to you, let’s be honest, more likely than not they’ve reach out to three others. So it’s just one point in the process to show that you’re serious. What else can you do as a speaker to be sort of agent-friendly?

Vince Poscente Yeah. So I just did it yesterday. As a matter of fact, I was in Nashville. I gave a speech to a very large American association. There was a thousand people in the room. That’s the priority. But we went early and I left late. I rented a car and I popped down to that speaker bureau and not all the agents were there, but you know what happened? The ones that couldn’t be there ended up coming on board, uh, through zoom, uh, zoom. Yeah. So I had an in-person and a digital meeting. with all of them, and I’m launching this new speech to the safety world, it’s called Radical Safety. And I’m not going to all the bureaus and telling them what it is. I’m going to curate the people that need to see this and want to see them who have clients that book these kinds of safety conferences. So, you know, that tip is good old-fashioned relationships, it is not about. SEO or any of that. And I’m not trying to be old fashioned here. I’m just realizing that you don’t get booked if there’s not a relationship.

Peter Winick And you don’t get booked if you’re a jerk, if you are difficult to deal with, if you make ridiculous demands, if, you know, if you treat agents as if there’s some subservient, lower class citizen or something, that word gets around. And there are fewer and fewer speakers that actually have a really good reputation just as human beings, you on the agent side. And I think that comes back. I want to flip to the other side now, given that the market shifted because agents are still. important, bureaus are still important, but if 70% of the business is coming direct, give us the, you know, if someone’s new to the game, let’s say they’re less than three years into the space on the speaking side, give us a handful of tips of things that they need to be doing to generate inquiries and leads and drive the business directly. Because you can’t just, you know the old days, you go get listed at 10 bureaus and sit back and, you know take up golf and wait for the phone to ring. Those days are over. What do you do to shake the trees yourself.

Vince Poscente So number one, you have to have what I call a DVP or a distinct value proposition. And that DVP is, I mean, it has to be distinct. So, right. Not general, not the general value proposition, the distinct. Uh, and so, you know, an example was I keep coming back to Keith Harrell, but he’s since passed away, but I was reading all these Harvard business review articles and all this branding stuff. I was getting my masters, as you mentioned, that… And, uh, and his distinct value proposition had cheese all over it. It was called the attitude is everything. Right. And I looked it down my nose and I thought, how ridiculous. Do you know how busy that guy was? And the reason he was busy is he was very distinct in what he was offering. It was attitude. Attitude is everything and when clients said we need that, then you’ve got that good start, uh Scott gross head. in what are their 5,000 customer service speakers, 10,000, he was positively outrageous service. So he had something very distinct. The second piece is lead with a video trailer and there’s all sorts of opinions across the board. I’m more of a fan of about six, seven minutes because I feel that if they’re going to make that big ass decision of the fee of paying that much money, they want to see some evidence that you’re worth it. So But then and then the third piece is getting on YouTube and Vimeo and then launching a bunch of 70 second not more than two minute videos of your content, your expertise.

Peter Winick So wait, so let’s talk about the video piece, because a lot of folks differ, you know, it’s hard for them to differentiate their reel, and we could debate whether it should be two minutes or seven minutes or whatever, but the reel is basically the sample of, this is who I am and what I do, big audience, small audience, audience reaction, you, you know, blah, blah blah, like, you know, it’s sort of almost a template, right? But I love this concept of the short form little snack, right, that you’re actively going out there onto YouTube. Are those stage clips, are those you at your desk, are they formal, are they professional? Give us a sense of sort of the. production values and is it more content? Tell me a little bit about that.

Vince Poscente Let’s start here. It has to have the viewer go, oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Peter Winick So that’s content, not production value per se, right?

Vince Poscente But before production value, oh, I haven’t thought of it that way. I just a few days ago spoke with George Campbell. He years ago came out with Joe Malarkey, the world’s worst motivational speaker. I had shared office space with the speaker bureau and they would watch that video for lunch because it was so freaking entertaining and the video production quality was horrible, but it was flat out funny. It was, I’d never seen anything like that. Gee, I hadn’t thought about it that. way. So When you lead with that, then the production value, if you’ve got stuff on stage, take a clip that’s less than two minutes and put it on the internet. If you’ve gotta clip that you’re walking down the street that you say, you know, I was thinking something and then you lay it out there in a way that’s either innovative or counterintuitive, you’re gonna have the viewers go, this guy’s on his game or this person’s on, his or her game.

Peter Winick So it’s a combination then, right? So thoughtful, insightful, and a decent production quality. Any other recommendations for folks earlier on trying to, because there’s so many, there’s no barrier to entry. Anybody could say, hey, peterspeaker.com and go check me out or whatever.

Vince Poscente Yeah, I know. I would say also there’s a sequence you’re going to want to follow. And this is virtually not just with video, not just your speech, but even in an email. And I call it the anatomy of communication, which is eyes. You want to get their attention where they go, well, this is different. So think of BuzzFeed in a way, you know, they grab your attention with something, the three things you gotta learn before you die. You know, okay, what are those three things? So get their attention. Something almost clicked in me, if you will. Yes, yes. And in video, you have to start with that thing. If you start your video by saying, hey, how are you doing? If you started your speech, oh, what an honor to be here or whatever, already you’re done. Or you’re having to catch up after you just said something they expect you to say. So The eyes, the head, get inside their head with either something that’s innovative or counter-intuitive that I mentioned. The audience, the viewer goes, oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way. And then the heart, they want to see a real person. I mean, for us to have a conversation here, we’re being conversational. Right. You know, there’s nothing silted about this conversation and we’re being real. And if somebody doesn’t like you or doesn’t like me because maybe I said, kick our ass, maybe they don’t like it when people use crass language. Well, it’s who I am. I mean, they just said it. So, I mean it’s just connect with people in a very authentic way. And just know this, you can’t do authenticity.

Peter Winick Well, so, you know, that’s an interesting point because I’ve had clients that I’ve worked with where they have a certain style, right, whether it’s language that they use, or casualness in their dress, or, you know, they never wear a tie. And then it’s, you know, working with the clients, oh, okay, but for our event, everybody wears a tie, you know, or something silly like that. And they’re like, yeah, that s not me. So that’s an indication that it’s probably not a good fit. Now, if it’s a black tie event or something like that, you’re not coming in a motorcycle jacket, but there needs to be some range of, hey, you know, if you’re, you’re you know speaker dropping the F bomb, that’s it. That’s sort of a hot button. And the client’s like, yeah, could you not do that? You know, the answer might be, well, I, you now that’s part of my brand for better or worse. Maybe this isn’t a fit. I mean, I think this part of it is having the courage to know. Where, you know, the dream of that audience that is the one that when you got off stage, you were as high as a kite and they were loving it as well. And how do you find more like that, as opposed to conforming too much to try to, you know check their boxes or whatever?

Vince Poscente A good little litmus test is, is this decision, is what I’m saying based on ego or is it based on authenticity about intent?

Peter Winick Wait, wait, wait. You’re saying speakers have an ego? Hold on, hold on here. Hold on. Stop the process.

Vince Poscente Yeah, the ego, the poop detector will go off very quickly when the ego is really big. And that’s probably what we’re seeing live and on stage in our…

Peter Winick Cool, so we’re starting to wind up here, Vince, and so much wisdom here. Any final do’s or don’ts?

Vince Poscente Yeah, the, I would really come back to something I said earlier. It was almost a throwaway comment, but it was do what the competition is not willing to do. And that applies to four areas. So anybody listening, you know, it’s the financial things. What are the, what’s your competition in the speaking world, not willing to do with regards to financial physical, you know, taking care of yourself, um, the physical preparation, the role playing. that. getting in front of audiences any time, anywhere, any price, uh, the technical. I mean, are you a student of this? Are you researching constantly? Are you becoming an expert in that category in a way? The competition is not willing to do and then, um, mental and the mindset and, uh mental training. And that’s how I got to the Olympics. That’s how it got to The New York Times, best selling speaker hall of fame, all of that stuff happened because there was those four categories with the mindset of do what the competition is, not willing to do.

Peter Winick Great, and I also love that you could speak of authenticity or you could be authentic, right? And you’re always been relatable, right, like I said at the beginning of the show, wow, you read your bio and it’s like, holy crap, this is pretty intimidating, right. But it’s about, and that might get you in the door, that might be a differentiator, that might part of the brand, that’s all cool, but nobody wants a pompous jerk once they get on, right, and then part of that. The gist of your brand is yeah, I’ve done all those great things, but I’m just another guy like you How can I help you? You know, what can I do to help you achieve your objective relative to this keynote?

Vince Poscente We’re gonna do this together.

Peter Winick Yeah. And there’s a humble piece, right? It’s sort of an odd business to be humble in when most people work more than an hour a day and the end of their day doesn’t end in a standing ovation. So it can affect your mind. But I think that staying humble and staying authentic is really cool. So I appreciate this. Vince, I’ve been a fan for a long time and it’s been an honor to have you on today. I appreciate it very much.

Vince Poscente Well, ditto, man, you keep up the great work, Peter. You really are somebody I’ve, you clear your throat. I take notes. So just know that. Well, I’m to you. So thank you. All right, man. Take care everybody.

Peter Winick To learn more about thought leadership leverage, please visit our website at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at Peter at Thought Leadership Leverage dot com and please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.